


where your heart is set in stone

by the_most_painful_truth



Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU, Fluff, Gen, Genderbending, Rule 63, Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-19
Updated: 2014-08-19
Packaged: 2018-02-13 19:05:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2161734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_most_painful_truth/pseuds/the_most_painful_truth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The air is hollow and the lights are dim.</p><p>Sunlight peeks in through the cracks in the curtains and hangs dusty in the air, and although the slow lap of the ceiling fan does nothing to move it, Sam pretends it does. It certainly makes the sweat along her shoulder blades chill into that vaguely nauseating slickness and she hasn’t yet gone out for her run, but she already wants to change clothes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	where your heart is set in stone

**Author's Note:**

> Just a ficlet written for the lovely [Ro](http://the-most-beautiful-lie.tumblr.com/) & crossposted from tumblr. [This song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mVbdjec0pA) used as an inspiration. (And the title is taken from the lyrics.) Enjoy!
> 
> Edit: There were going to be a few more chapters, but I've kinda fallen out of the Supernatural fandom, so I'll just leave it as is.

The air is hollow and the lights are dim.

Sunlight peeks in through the cracks in the curtains and hangs dusty in the air, and although the slow lap of the ceiling fan does nothing to move it, Sam pretends it does. It certainly makes the sweat along her shoulder blades chill into that vaguely nauseating slickness and she hasn’t yet gone out for her run, but she already wants to change clothes. 

She laces up her tennis shoes—the worn ones with the floppy sole that moved with every step and the holes along the sides where the fabric was just an unraveling suggestion but they were the only pair she had and it wasn’t as if she could go running in her boots or beg Dee for another pair, not when they were low on money to begin with—and sweeps her hair up into a ponytail. Although it’s longer than it used to be, it barely reaches her shoulders and Sam finds she likes the whispering suggestion against her skin. She isn’t the same girl as she had been when she’d chopped off all of her hair the moment she got to San Francisco, ready to leave behind the monsters under the bed that couldn’t be kept out by salt circles, ready for Stanford and for normality pre packaged and sold on discount, and when she looks into the mirror set in the wall across from the motel bed, she doesn’t look like her either. Sam doesn’t know exactly what she looks like. A stranger, perhaps. Only a few months ago Sam would have found the girl in the mirror as such.

Peeling her eyes from the mirror and her thighs from the bedsheets, Sam stands and sighs, stretching idly. She looks towards the window—still tightly closed—and then towards the door, gaze traversing the godawful flowery gold and blue wallpaper in a moment of quiet. Sam exhales and it feels as if the motel does so with her. Not creaking and groaning, but quietly, the musical monotony of the air conditioner—broken—and the clicking cycle of the fan as it twitches and judders and the air twitches and judders along with it. And yes, the muffled snores of her sister behind her, a silhouette of bedsheets and ruffled bedhead, stripped down to her boxers and her bra to withstand the heat.

Sam rolls her eyes fondly as she regards the pile of blankets before heading towards the door. The doorknob sticks when she tries to open it for the first time, the lock thick with the moisture from the air, and Sam swears softly before jiggling it again, leaning against it like it would move if she just pressed that little bit harder and—well it isn’t a surprise when she nearly ends up on her ass outside on the concrete, the door swinging nonchalantly back to tap her foot like a dog begging for a treat. Sam levels it a glare. The daily harassment of common household objects is one of the perks of living in shitty motel rooms that could have been built in the Stone Age and doesn’t Sam know that better than anyone.

She leaves the door open while she stretches, not quite willing to start her run in the sticky, unappealing heat of the summer morning. The crickets caterwaul in the bushes beside the dumpster across the parking lot and the air shimmers like butter had been rubbed all over it, making Sam squint and yawn. She leans on the Impala while stretching her calves and immediately regards that as one of the worst decisions she’s ever made: the black metal is searing to the touch, smooth as satin catching fire. Hissing, she leans against the bedraggled vending machine instead, scrutinizing the sky and the horizon, just a thin line and the suggestion of infinity, like she could run forever in that direction without ever reaching another soul.

Sam’s just about to take off when a shrill, spitting noise behind her like a cat trying to become an opera singer has her tensing and turning, ready for a fight. There’s nothing there, of course, but that’s almost as terrifying as the alternative. That is, of course, until she sees the flashing neon red of the alarm clock on the bedside table and the ghostly, freckled hand hitting it repetitively.

“You know, the off button is literally on the side,” She points out with a laugh, leaning against the doorframe.

“If you remembered to turn off your damn alarm we wouldn’t have this damn problem,” Deanna says instead, her voice muffled by the pillow, each syllable slurring into another from drowsiness like toy cars in a wreck, and there’s something inherently satisfying to Sam about watching Dee give up and just pull the plug on the entire clock before burrowing back down under the blankets. Sam doesn’t really know how she’s doing that, considering she’s in a tank top and it feels as if fire was running down her back though that could be due to the sun doing its balancing act on the horizon. It’s not as if the Winchesters had ever really invested in sunscreen. They had bigger things to worry about than a tan.

Sam rolls her eyes and faces the streets again, slipping a slim pocket knife from sweaty palm to sweaty palm. The edge was serrated but she danced it along her fingers like it wasn’t, all too familiar with the cut of the blade. Deanna would’ve skinned Sam alive if she dared go running without at least one knife and even though Dee couldn’t get out of bed even if Hell were raised right next to her ear—alarm clock being the case in point—she would have given Sammy an arsenal rather than have her run unprotected.

“Sammy!” Moans the pile of blankets in the shadowed room behind her, pitifully. “Close the damn door.”

“You could always get up and come running with me.” Sam grins, using her phone to aim the smallest sliver of light to hit the mound of blankets and hearing the aggravated grunts of her older sister in response.

“There is a reason pigs don’t fly, dude, just close the fucking door.” Just barely in the gloom of the room, the sunlight cutting through the dust motes like keys on a piano, Sam can see her older sister raise a sleepily defiant middle finger.

“Jerk.” Sam laughs and takes off, hearing Deanna’s indignant “bitch” recede into the distance behind her, an infinity beneath her feet.


End file.
